Scorpius Port

Trouble Found

Today I found the source of the trouble we’ve been having with keeping the house warm. It turns out the window in the quanset hut, which had some things in front of it, had not been fully closed at the end of summer.

The window is an older style that my sister and I had picked up at the local junkyard years ago, and is built with the old style of lever action slower window that tips out at the base underneath a large plate glass window.

Given the age of the window you need to go outside and push against it to properly seal it when you close it. Unfortunately we seemed to have forgotten to do that this fall, and as a result the ice built up around the mechanism and expanded and the window got pushed open. Not a lot, but enough that it was a major heat loss point and the source of the cold draft we kept feeling on particularly cold nights.

I spent all day carefully thawing the window out and convincing it to close. I finally got it about ten minutes ago, but discovered one side of the wooden frame had been badly warped by the cold and pressure of the ice forcing it open. I got it as closed as I can and have ticked window seal stuff in the crevice. Once the wood has had a chance to dry a bit I will weather seal it and put a sheet of weatherizing plastic over the inside. I already have one on the outside that I put there to seal it while I thawed it out.

Still only about 50 F in here, but hopefully tonight will be a LOT warmer than the 45 degrees F it was last night. I at least can not see my breath it the moment.